I enjoy the fact that I can get the full range of Carolina brewing company beers about 30 minutes away at the Food City, so I have had experince with this brewery before. And like their other beers, this one is enjoyable and refreshing, beer after beer.

I poured this into a red wine glass... it was clean. Poured a nice cherry wood color.

Smells and tastes of pumpkins, spices, pie, cider, and a soy bean candle I had once.

No lacing, head no where to be found

I gave the drinkability a 3.5, but maybe a little higher on a colder night.

Poured as a orange-brown with about a 2 finger head that held its retention well. Has a spiced pumpkin with a hint of a peppery smell to it. For the taste almost has like a cinnamon pumpkin pie taste. Very light on the hops side but a great beer overall. One I will steadily have for sure

This beer is dark for a pumpkin in my mind. The beer pours a amber ruby color with a finger of head that falls to coat the beer. The nose is full of pumpkin. Not a lot of spices, just enough to balance it out. As it sits, the spices come out more, but give it a swirl, and the pumpkin takes over again. The flavor is really heavy on the pumpkin and lighter on the spice. A nice nice beer. The feel is maybe a touch thin...just a touch though. Drinkability is very good on this beer. I could sit down to a few of these, and thats a lot to say for a pumpkin ale.

Pours a nice deep magenta color with hints of orange and a two finger head. I'm picking up a nice pumpkin pie nose with cinammon and nutmeg. Pumpkin cider....damn this smells good...brings me back to the holidays!

Pumpkin puree mashed up with a heaping helping of cinnamon, nutmeg and a sweet maltiness. All of the spices work well and don't overpower the pumpkin flavor...a delicate balance is achieved that is not often found in pumpkin ales. Damn good.

Mouthfeel is creamy and goes down easy. A smidge more body would kick this up a notch...but I can't complain. If I had access to this brew I'd have at least a sixer on every Turkey Day. Just a tasty, easy drinking brew....yummy. Many thanks to merlin48 for being nice and sharing :-)

This is one of my favorite fruit/ veg beers. I havent had too many but this is one of my faves. Pours a cloudy amber with very little head and very little retention with no lacing. The smell is great; lots of spice aroma with cinnamon, cloves, and pumpkin pie spice. Tastes like pumpkin pie, which is a real treat. A very drinkable beer. I always enjoy many sessions of this beer around the holidays while hanging out with my family. Nice beer.

Great color,looked unfiltered,smelled like a nice spiced pumpkin pie or bread(coul smell it all day without even takin a sip.)Pumpkin pie spice came through on palate very well,cardimum,cinnamon?Had nice malty texture and didnt fill me up after 4 of them.Cottonwood for me is the best bottled ales to get here in this area.

Thanks to merlin48 for giving me this beer. Pours a dark amber color with a moderate head that has nice retention and leaves a little lacing on the glass. Lots of pumpkin in the aroma - well balanced with the spice and the actual pumpkin. The flavor is very nice with a lot of pumpkin. I was pleased that the spices were much weaker than the actual pumpkin flavor. Very nice pumpkin ale. Right on par with my top pumpkin ale - Dogfish Head Punkin (2003 version).

The beer poured hazy amber-brown and the bottle had quite a layer of sediment in it for this beer to not be bottle conditioned. The head fell back quickly. The aroma is spice and malt, actually lots of malt aroma and a good spice balance. Also in the aroma is caramel, and ginger. The flavor is well done with clove and cinnamon spice, probably alspice all well balanced. The malt flavors accompanying the spice are well done also. The body works well and gives the beer a good drinkability.

Im in heaven! This is one of the best, if not the best Pumpkin Brews I have ever gotten my greasy grimy mitts wrapped around.

12 ounces of golden orange color with a good tan head. Aroma is incredible; nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, youd think you were in the kitchen waiting for mom to pop this into a pie shell to bake in the oven.

The taste was very pleasing and the spices take front stage but do not completely cover the malt flavor. Real pumpkin in every bottle with a brewer not afraid to add the right amount of spices, what more could you ask for? How about another ..happily.

12 oz with no freshness date. I poured it like a hefe to get all the unfiltered goodies out. The body is an opaque raspberry/brown with some sediment and a 1 finger yellowish/tan head that doesn't leave lacing but a thin blanket of foam remains throughout. It looks like a dank IPA. Soft pumpkin pie aroma - real pumpkin pie with a light spicing of nutmeg and cloves. Tastes like pumpkin pie also. Nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin, a bit of cinnamon... some sweetness and the malts/hops of the beer make faint appearances in the second half. The body is medium and fairly smooth but the carbonation is a bit sharp at times. Overall it's very tasty and I wish I had a slice of pie to pair it with.

This beer holds special nostalgic value for me, as it defined my fall of 2003, particularly the music I was heavily getting into at the time. I go back in time by just smelling it, revisiting the look, feel and sound of used vinyl records, the sounds emanating from the hi-fi, and that particular melancholy, bittersweet feeling exclusive to the onset of autumn. This tells you nothing about the beer, but I can't review the beer without mentioning it. I drank my share that autumn, and will continue to buy a case every season. Not just for nostalgic reasons, it remains the best pumpkin ale I've tried so far...but I'm far from having tried them all. I'm still looking for something to beat it.

This beer doesn't hold up well in the appearance department because the head pours out thin and doesn't hang around long at all. The color is a cloudy rust-brown, which is nice. No significant lace buildup.

Aroma brings a nice pumpkin-y smell, seems a natural enough aroma, and there's a layer of sharper spices, like a cinnamon/nutmeg mixture, coming into the nose.

The flavors are much like the aroma, with a milky, dessert-y satisfaction in the finish. Spicy and malty flavors abound (cinnamon, nutmeg, caramel, butter), reminiscent of the traditional Thanksgiving pie, and even baked apple shows itself. Hops mingle in there offering adequate bittering. Just about the only improvement needed is a creamier mouthfeel. It's a bit over-carbonated, tingly and fizzy where the flavors clearly call for something smoother and creamier. [I like to let this beer warm a bit, which seems to diminish the bubbly attack quite a bit.]

I've tried 4 or 5 other pumpkin ales. Some were crap and some enjoyable, but so far this is the best I've had.

[Note to self two years later: Southern Tier, Elysian and Smuttynose have pumpkin ales that beat this one, hands down. But I still want no other pumpkin ale with my Manfred Mann's Earth Band vinyl than this one!]

A - Deep amber/red with a slight haze. Nearly three fingers of head rise with decent retention. No lacing.

S - Perfect! Cinnamon and nutmeg are the most obvious spices, but there's a huge amount of actual pumpkin pulling through as well with a slight sourness. A hint of toasted malt as well. Very well balanced and big on the pumpkin aroma.

T - The cinnamon and nutmeg (with perhaps a bit of clove in there?) take hold first with a mild malt sweetness in the background. A small toasted flavor starts drying things out and then there's a big hit of sour pumpkin. Sourness lingers in the finish. Nicely balanced and great focus on the pumpkin.

M - Medium bodied with a moderate carbonation.

D - A great drinking pumpkin ale without the high ABV of some others. This is a very focused and balanced effort and the emphasis on the pumpkin flavor is perfectly executed. A top-notch pumpkin ale right up there with the big boys. It also manages not to become too sweet or bitter as others of the style.

This is like pumpkin pie in a bottle! This should be the standard from which all other pumpkin ales are measured, IMHO!

Poured a deep, pumpkin color into a pint glass. Not a great head, and minimal lacing. Very nice coloring.

Aromas of pumpkin pie spice and fresh pumpkin. Allspice predominates with side notes of ginger and cloves. Not much in the way of hops or malts, but I wasn't really expecting any of those aromas.

Taste was exactly what I would think a pumpkin ale should taste like. Mild spiciness with pumpkin flavor, but not overly sweet or cloying. Just an overall nice flavor. Without a doubt the best pumpkin ale I have had.

Light, slightly fizzy mouthfeel keeps this beer refreshing, yet it still has a rich, full body. A beer of this style could risk being slightly overpowering, but Cottonwood balances the flavors and mouthfeel perfectly, IMO.

Very drinkable pumpkin ale. An excellent brew for the Fall when evenings start cooling down. I drank this with a bowl of beef stew and it was an excellent choice of beverage. Highly recommended.

taste: well, this thing owns new holland ichabod, no question about it. it actually tastes like pumpkin pie with great hints of spices that came through in the nose coming through in the taste as well. The pumpkin and spice is balanced well in comparison to some other pumpkin ales. the pumpkin really gets to shine in this beer. bravo

mouthfeel: definately not too thin which was my beef with some others, nice carbonation, medium bodied, tickles the tongue

drinkability: just like i remembered, i can drink these all day long

congratulations cottonwood, while the brewery has changed greatly over the past years, this brew remains top notch for a pumpkin ale.

I first had this beer about 5 years ago. This was before I knew about good beer, and didn't know that you could make beer from pumpkins. This beer blew me away at the time, and I've been looking for it ever since. I got this in a trade with limesmut, and I must say that this beer is as good today as it was 5 years ago.

Pours a murky amber color with no head to speak of or lacing. Smells like pumpkin pie, cinnamon and spices. Tastes like it smells, only intensified. Very well balanced! The pumpkin and the underlying spices complement each other quite well. Mouthfeel is very smooth. It's slightly effervescent - but not too bad. I could drink these every day in the Fall if I had to. The season isn't complete until I get one of these, and I'm really glad I was able to pick up a sixer.

This is the best pumpkin beer of the season. Post Road & DFH Punkin' are good, but this is much better in my opinion. Now if only I could get my hands on some Southern Tier Pumking...

This is hands down THE best pumpkin ale I've ever had. I had it on tap at the brewery, which was almost heavenly. So much, that I sampled it like 3 times and got 2 pints of it(all for only $5 for the tour charge, drinks were free)! The color was a dark orangey color and had a creamy head to it that frothed very well, as well as lasted a while. The smell was oh so delicious, just like the taste was. It had elements of all spice and cinnamon. They said that they brew it with actual pumpkin, all spice, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, all of which are all natural. I was very suprised by their rigidness for the whole all natural thing. Anyways, I couldn't really think of any way that they could have improved on making the smell any better. The taste was similar to the smell, but was more complex. You could taste the all spice at first, but then the pumpkin, cloves, and ginger took over. It settled so nicely on the tounge. It was well balanced, so that it wasn;t too sweet or too malty. That in itself was very impressive, I thought. I honestly could sit at home, or anywhere esle, and drink this stuff forever. After having this, it makes me wanna go out and spread the word of the Carolina Pumpkin Ale. If you ever have the chance, go taste it. You will die a happy person.

This is one of my favorite beers. Had it at a fall rennaisaunce festival locally. 2 years running now. Couldn't get enough of it last year. Cleared the shelves at the grocery stores. Hate that it's seasonal. Even my "No Thank you, I don't like beer" friends loved this one! The color was a nice reddish/brownish/and yes, orange. Frothing with a pumpkin smell, my friends were a bit offended by the odor, til they tasted it too. You just don't expect pumpkin pie in a beer, yet there it is. We all just kept saying, wow! It was light, and very refreshing on a hot autumn day in the south, and yet warm and comforting on the cool ones. I can't wait for the fall, to get my paws on it again!

Had this again in '05, what a let down. '04 has been the best so far, sad that it hasn't been matched since. Maybe '06 will make a difference.